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Topic: Number 11 Bus Route (Read 2466 times)

This is a record of the number 11 outer circle route as it used to be when some of us were children and our parents gave us the money on a Sunday morning to go and ride the route to get us out of their hair whilst mom cooked Sunday lunch.

I will do the outline for this photographic record of the route in the below sections, If you have a comment you want to record or a photo you wish to add, please keep it to the relevant section. I will be using images from all dates and will not be trying to keep them to any one particular era.

This is a route I have no personal knowledge of so if I make any errors please excuse me, I don't remember ever using a number 11 bus at all.

The route was started in 1926 though sections had been run as early as 1923. The route today is about 27 miles in length and takes some two hours to complete. Until just quite recently the route was the longest urban route in the UK but this has been overtaken by Coventry's number 360 service.

For the purpose of this thread the route we will take around the route will be clockwise (11C).

My GP was on Aston Lane, a little further up from the London Road junction but on the other side of the road from it. There was a chemist opposite the doctors that had the old fashioned glass bottles in the window with different coloured water in each one. He's actually make up medicines in the back, so rather than telling you to get some mass produced stuff, the doctor would send you across the road with a note to get some of his 'number 2 cough medicine' or somesuch!

Judith which way was you going and where did you get off. perhaps I may have a photo of that location?

I lived in the area for about 10 years - from the mid 80's to the mid-90's. I don't think I have any pictures of the area though - maybe a view or two out of the flat window, but nothing really of the shops & streets, so it's nice to see them here.

I'd go in either direction really. I'd go clockwise to Acocks Green when I was going to visit family in Olton, and anti-clockwise to Stirchley to the Bredon Bar.

I once did the whole route in one day, getting off at Acocks Green to get some groceries before getting back on at the same stop!

In the late 70s early 80s they did a walk for charity around the 11 route,my daughter who was about 11-12 did the complete walk to raise quite a lot of money,myself and wife walked with her to Handsworth before catching the bus back to Perry Barr.